


I'm a moon, not a flower

by Perelynn



Category: Chronicles of Amber - Roger Zelazny
Genre: F/M, M/M, Sex Gone Wrong, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-07
Updated: 2019-03-07
Packaged: 2019-11-13 11:04:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18030530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Perelynn/pseuds/Perelynn
Summary: Corwin adores her from as early as she can remember. She likes him well enough, but it’s the other brother, the older brother who makes her heart skip a beat.





	1. The older brother

**Author's Note:**

> Looking for feedback on this. What do you like? What do you dislike? Which aspects of Deirdre's relationships with her brothers would you like to see explored?  
> Also, looking for a beta.

Corwin adores her from as early as she can remember. She likes him well enough, but it’s the other brother, the older brother who makes her heart skip a beat.

She was smitten with Eric since they were kids. He never liked her back. He never even noticed her. Whenever she tried to speak with him he would look at her coldly with his startling blue eyes, and the words would stuck in her throat. 

Deirdre had had enough love, as a kid. Her father was distant, but Corwin was always near, playing with her, wrestling with her, bringing her new toys. Her nanny, a relative to her mother, saw to her every comfort. The courtiers were attentive and agreeable with her, the only daughter of a mighty king. But Eric ignored her, and it hurt.

What irked her more, there was a person next to her who always got Eric’s attention. Her brother Corwin. Whatever he did, Eric would comment. Wherever he went, Eric would know. Whenever he had a plan, Eric was there to point and laugh and ruin it. 

‘Why are you so mean to him?’ Deirdre asked Eric once.

‘None of your business,’ he replied, cold as ever.

‘Why are you so mean to me?’ she demanded.

‘I am never mean to you.’

‘But you never talk to me!’

‘What would I talk to you about?’ Eric asked, derision clear in his voice. ‘You are a baby.’

‘I’m not much younger than Corwin.’

‘Young enough to need a babysitter,’ Eric snorted. ‘The role my brother is all too happy to play.’

This conversation, however brief, left Deirdre in the state of furious determination. She was not a baby! She would prove to him. She would walk the Pattern of Amber, claiming her birthright and harnessing the power of Shadows. 

She was sixteen.

Her struggle through the Pattern was full of demons. Flames formed monstrous shapes, horned and hoofed, winged and clawed, with blue eyes, cold as ice. She was freezing under their stares, shivering so much she had trouble walking. Still, she persisted. Step after step she took, following the bright Pattern line. She was calling to the monsters, telling them all the things she wanted Eric to know, filling them with her desires. By the time she was done, the phantom eyes were ablaze with passion and warmth. She emerged from the Pattern weak, but victorious, sending herself to Corwin’s chambers and falling into his waiting arms.

Her father was livid when he found out. ‘What were you thinking?’ he berated her. ‘You are far too young! Not even a man grown can take this challenge lightly, and you’re barely of age!’

She listened, unperturbed. The Pattern changed her in more ways that she would care to number. She had indeed been a baby before, she saw it now. Not anymore. She was a Princess of Amber, able and powerful, with all the marvels of Shadows at her fingertips. It felt incredible.

There was one important rite left to her. Deirdre was to choose her colors. She picked black and silver, Corwin’s hues. Look, she wanted to tell Eric, I’m just like him. She picked a different emblem - a crescent, not a rose. I’m not a flower, she wanted Eric to know. My passion won’t wilt and die, its fragrance gone. My light will be eternal if only you let me to lit your path. 

The next day after she negotiated the Pattern, Deirdre sought Eric. This time, she didn’t give him a chance to avoid her, or to mock her, or to render her mute with his stare. She spoke to him loud and clear, confessing his love for him.

He was taken aback, she could tell. He was not used to her being so direct, so confident. The look he was giving her… it was as if he _noticed_ her, for the first time.

‘Is it some ploy?’ he asked.

Why does Eric always have to be so suspicious? Deirdre bit back her reply. She needed to act differently now, not the way she did for all the previous years. She needed to show him things had changed.

‘No ploy,’ she said. ‘What can I do for you to believe me? Tell me, and I’ll do it.’

‘Will you indeed?’ he said, his face unreadable, his eyes studying hers. ‘Fine. Cut your hair.’ 

‘What?’

‘You heard me. Cut it short. Like a boy.’

Without thinking, she touched her long raven-black tresses falling below her waist. Eric smirked. 

The next day, she showed up in his room, wearing a buzzcut. 

‘Wow,’ Eric said. 

It was the first time she saw something other than coldness in his blue eyes. He raised his hand, touching her hair gently. 

‘So soft,’ he murmured.

‘For you,’ she let out, breathless. 

He was still raking through her hair with his fingers, his eyes half-closed, his white teeth biting his lower lip slightly. Those lips… Deirdre stood on her tiptoes. 

‘Do you believe me now?’ she asked, her breath mingling with his. 

His hand moved to the nape of her neck, sensing, caressing. His other hand found its way to her waist.

‘I desire you now,’ he muttered, his eyes still half-closed, his mouth claiming hers.

At first, she took his brutal manners for the sign of passion. Eric held her so tight she could barely move, and his hand groped her arse with such force it would leave marks. She was prepared to move further than kisses, theoretically, but he didn’t even ask. He undressed her, quite carelessly, ruining her dress in the process. Before she knew it, they were naked in his bed and he was taking her from behind. 

He wasn’t her first man. She could go without long preludes. She was willing enough. Still, Deirdre didn’t expect things to happen so quickly. He was beating into her, his breath laboured, his hands gripping firmly at her buttocks. It was nothing like she imagined. No joy. Just pain.

‘You are going too fast,’ she told him. ‘You are hurting me!’

He paid her no heed. 

Deirdre jerked forward, Eric’s cock slipping out of her. He tried to hold her, to pin her to the bed with his muscular arms, but strength of Amber was her also. She weaseled out from under him and jumped off the bed. 

‘What's gotten into you?’ she asked him. Something was trickling down her legs, and when she looked down, she saw blood.

He was looking, too, a crooked smile curving his perfect lips. Deirdre wanted to punch him. How can someone so handsome be so cruel?

‘Oh, drop your pretenses now,’ Eric said. ‘Do you think I don't get it? You sided with Corwin, you did.’

She stared at him in disbelief.

‘Are you mental? Why would I be here if it were so?’

‘Just look at your colors, you little bitch!’ Eric grabbed her ruined dress from the corner of the bed and threw it at her. ‘You had a whole palette to choose from, and you chose silver and black? You're copying him!’

‘That's not what you think!’

‘There is nothing to think! You are my brother’s creature, through and through.’

Deirdre have had enough. 

‘Oh Eric,’ she said, taking a bedsheet and covering herself, ‘when it comes to building alliances, you are truly gifted. To spite someone who loves you, illegitimacy and all...’

She shouldn't have said the last bit. 

‘It’s because of you I’m illegitimate,’ Eric growled through gritted teeth. ‘It was you who ruined my cause forever.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘I have no interest in continuing this conversation. Go back to our brother. He’ll have you readily enough. He’ll fuck you the way you want. He’ll fulfill your every desire. He’ll elope with you if you ask him.’

This was the moment when Deirdre knew Eric’s heart, and she looked at him with compassion. She was not the only one here with her love unrequited.

The next day, her hair was long again, falling past her waist. It took her ten years in distant Shadow to grow it back. But the look on Eric's face was worth it.


	2. The eldest brother

‘How did my mother die?’ she asked. ‘I know she perished bringing me into the world. But this is Amber. Our father is an almighty king, a god. How come nothing could be done to save her?’

‘Our father is an immortal king,’ her brother agreed, ‘and you are half-immortal yourself, we all are. But your mother, like mine, was a mortal woman. Prone to mortal deceases.’

‘She got sick?’

‘While she was pregnant, yes. She developed a condition. I saw it a few times in the field.’ The man looked at her, measuring her reaction. ‘There are women who follow an army on the march, and some of them get pregnant. This kind of maladie is called eclampsia. It’s a disorder caused specifically by pregnancy. And, in Faiella’s case, it manifested when you were well underway. The queen started having headaches. Her vision deteriorated. She could barely move.’

‘Wasn’t there a cure?’

‘There was. To take the foetus out.’

‘Me?’

‘Yes. Our father wanted to terminate the pregnancy the moment he recognized the symptoms. It was still possible to save Faiella. She would lose the baby and probably never bear children again, but she would recover.’

‘Would did my mother say?’

‘She would have none of it. The queen forbade our father to do anything. She made him swear, if any ill befalls her, that he would keep you and care for you. And so he did.’

She fell silent then, putting together the pieces of the puzzle in her mind.

‘My mother gave up her life to save me,’ she said. ‘My father wanted to kill me in the womb.’

‘Yes,’ the man said simply. ‘I know it sounds very unfair to you, but try to look at things from his prospective. For Father, it was a choice between a woman he loved and a bundle of cells that wasn’t even aware of its own existence yet.’ 

‘It sounds really strange when you put it like that.’

‘Life is strange. Get used to it.’

She wondered how used he was to the strangeness of life by now.

‘Still, this doesn’t explain Eric’s hostility towards me. Does it have anything to do with my mother? I really don’t see…’

‘Oh, Eric hates you. You should get used to it, too.’

‘Why? What did I ever do to him?’

‘Precisely what we just discussed. You were born. By doing this, you ruined his case.’

‘This doesn’t make any sense.’

Her brother gave her a long stare. When he spoke again, his voice had a tinge of contempt in it. 

‘Would Faiella live,’ he said, ‘she would eventually push Oberon to legitimize her firstborn. Father could never deny her anything. The only reason Eric wasn’t the heir proper from the get go was that mess with Cymnea’s family.’

‘Your mother!’

‘Yes. Oberon picked your mother over mine, but this complicated his politics quite a bit. His own sons, my brothers, rebelled against him. They had to be... quieted.’ 

‘I’m sorry,’ she said quickly. ‘You don’t have to tell me anything else.’

‘That was not when they died,’ he said. ‘First, they were just exiled. It took the birth of Corwin for a war to start. If only it were a girl… Osric and Finndo would have enough time for their heads to cool off. But the new male heir, born safely in wedlock, infuriated them. That’s how they lost their heads.’

‘I’m sorry I made you recount all this,’ Deirdre said miserably.

‘Better to get it out in one bit. So, my brothers were slain, and for the next several years it was too dangerous for Oberon to make any moves towards Eric’s legitimacy. And then came you. Faiella died, and with her all Eric’s hopes to ever be legitimized. Oberon was sick and tired of the feud with Cymnea’s lot, and he let the matter rest.’

‘Why didn’t Eric tell me this? I could have helped him with his cause! I could have talked to Father...’

Her brother shook his head.

‘It’s too late now. Father will never name Eric his successor.’

‘But why?’

‘I think you know the answer, my dear sister. Father wants his heir to be proper in every way. Including having heirs of his own. Heirs whose parentage would never come into question.’

‘That’s big, coming from Father,’ Deirdre said icily. ‘A man who once had a fling with the Unicorn, or so I’ve heard, removes his son out of succession line for the reason of being gay. Hypocrisy much? Anyway, if all our father desires from an heir is the ability to produce children of undisputable parentage, he should name _me_ his successor. At least the children that would come out of my womb would definitely be my own.’

‘Maybe you should raise the matter with him.’

‘Right. This will put me into Eric’s good graces, I’m sure.’

Her brother smiled.


End file.
